The advent of the Internet and the growth of resources accessible on the Internet have led to an increase in demand among the general public for access to the Internet. For some individuals and families, the cost of a general purpose computer has been a major impediment to obtaining access to the Internet. One solution for such people has been the recent development of low cost, special purpose Internet access devices, such as the WEBTV Internet access terminal, which utilizes a standard television set as a display. (WEBTV is a registered trademark of WEBTV Networks, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.) Such devices allow users to access the Internet without making the substantial investment required to purchase a personal computer.
Internet browsing and television viewing are further becoming linked in ways beyond the use of a television as a display device. In particular, various systems have been developed to deliver uniform resource locators ("URL's") in the broadcast television signal to direct viewers to Internet content associated with particular television shows or advertisers. Similarly, the INTERCAST.RTM. system from INTEL.RTM. embeds actual digital information from Internet sites for downloading simultaneously with the video content. Thus, it can be seen that the trend is for Internet browsing and television viewing to become more closely linked.
One unfortunate consequence of the increasing integration of television viewing and Internet browsing, particularly when using a single display, is the corresponding increase in complexity of the user interface necessary to allow users to access the features available to support television viewing and Internet browsing and switching therebetween. Prior user interface designs have allowed users to switch between an Internet browsing mode and a television viewing mode without regard for the recent status of either mode. Within each of these modes, there may be many different configurations in addition to basic browsing or viewing. These auxiliary configurations may be set-up screens, programming guides or other screens on which web content or television programming is not displayed. Thus, in attempting to return to television viewing, users may be confronted with an auxiliary screen in which television is not displayed and may become confused or frustrated attempting to obtain a television program display.